Absolutely best thing I've read about CFP evaluation of teams

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Excellent read. The issue I have is why even announce any rankings? Just do your homework during the season and have a couple private conference calls to discuss some teams. Then show up on December 5th and work all weekend to come up with the teams for your playoff and bowls. Announce them on Sunday the 7th. By then all the games will have been played and you don't have to guess. Now they have to justify every move they make.

I think he makes great points about Miss St and Old Miss in asking why are they so respected? What did they do to earn respect as programs. TCU has done more to earn the respect and has a recent track record.

Michigan State signed on with Oregon before the 2012 season. The stars aligned for both teams that they are good this year. Scheduling is based on reputation and luck. If Miss St. and Old Miss had reputations, maybe they would have had a tougher non-conference schedule.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Excellent read. The issue I have is why even announce any rankings? Just do your homework during the season and have a couple private conference calls to discuss some teams. Then show up on December 5th and work all weekend to come up with the teams for your playoff and bowls. Announce them on Sunday the 7th. By then all the games will have been played and you don't have to guess. Now they have to justify every move they make.

I think he makes great points about Miss St and Old Miss in asking why are they so respected? What did they do to earn respect as programs. TCU has done more to earn the respect and has a recent track record.

Michigan State signed on with Oregon before the 2012 season. The stars aligned for both teams that they are good this year. Scheduling is based on reputation and luck. If Miss St. and Old Miss had reputations, maybe they would have had a tougher non-conference schedule.
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The rankings are done for the sole purpose of driving hype and excitement for TV. Gives them the chance to bill a battle of top 25 teams or some other way of trying to attract interest in the game. Pre-season polls are a joke but they are there there for the fans and the networks. So while I agree they should just wait and do the rankings at the end in reality they want the debate and controversy because it drives attention and ratings.
 

MNVCGUY said:
The rankings are done for the sole purpose of driving hype and excitement for TV. Gives them the chance to bill a battle of top 25 teams or some other way of trying to attract interest in the game. Pre-season polls are a joke but they are there there for the fans and the networks. So while I agree they should just wait and do the rankings at the end in reality they want the debate and controversy because it drives attention and ratings.
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That is what the Power Rankings, Coaches Poll, and AP poll are for. I don't think it is right for this group to put out rankings. Just watch the games and collect data like the Basketball Committee does.
 


If anything does come from the first playoff, I hope it is that challenging non-conference schedules are rewarded and it results in teams looking for 1 (possibly 2) good non-conference games.

Honestly, this shouldn't apply to Alabama & Auburn (& LSU, even though they're probably not in line for a top 4 spot). Alabama usually has one, whether it's a neutral site game against Clemson or West Virginia along with Wisconsin next year, or a home & home with Penn State. And Auburn went to K-State. If both MSU's have only one loss, I hope Michigan State gets the nod for having the nuts to play Oregon & Mississippi State is penalized (like article said, probably not their fault since their goals at the time the schedule were made weren't a national title).

Among everything else, I REALLY do hope Missouri wins the East & SEC championship game. It will be highly entertaining listening to any justification for the SEC. Probably wishful thinking.
 

Rexrode says "the Spartans would be in the top four and in full control of their fate if they'd just hosted South Alabama instead of traveling to Oregon." This is true. But they would also be higher in the rankings if they had won in Eugene and then lost at home to Nebraska, mirroring what happened with the Ducks' home loss to Arizona.

Right now, Sparty is ranked appropriately, and they're going to have their chance to make a statement these last few weeks.
 

I'd like to see them consider not just strength of out of conference schedule, but also think about what the strength looked like when they are scheduled. I would love to see teams that schedule four cupcakes get hammered by the committee, but at the same time, I don't want teams to get screwed because they tried to schedule aggressively, but ended up with a weak OOC due to a team nosediving between when the game was scheduled and when it was played.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
That is what the Power Rankings, Coaches Poll, and AP poll are for. I don't think it is right for this group to put out rankings. Just watch the games and collect data like the Basketball Committee does.
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Problem with that is that in basketball you are ranking 60+ teams so there is a catch all in place to get most of the top teams involved. If they waited in football to announce the top 4 the fanbases of the teams that missed the cut would be screaming bloody murder about the system and how back room deals were made. Granted they will still complain this way as well but at least the committee can say that they put their rankings out ahead of times so people could see how teams were being valued.
 



bleedsmaroonandgold said:
I'd like to see them consider not just strength of out of conference schedule, but also think about what the strength looked like when they are scheduled. I would love to see teams that schedule four cupcakes get hammered by the committee, but at the same time, I don't want teams to get screwed because they tried to schedule aggressively, but ended up with a weak OOC due to a team nosediving between when the game was scheduled and when it was played.
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Good point. In the Brewster era, he tried to schedule some big time teams, USC, UNC, Texas, although only one came to fruition. Playing and potentially beating Texas this year wouldn't have had the same value as it would have 5 to 10 years ago when the game was scheduled. A lot of it is a crap shoot. Who would've thunk TCU would have been this good this year? How good will Oregon State be in 2 years? They could be terrible, or they could be PAC-12 champions...
 

Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Alabama got too much credit because they beat an average Texas A&M team that routed a mediocre South Carolina team. The Aggies were ranked #6, #14, #21 when they lost to those three.

A "quality" win based purely on preseason polls that over-inflated the Aggies win over #9 South Carolina. Gee, Alabama sure struggled with Arkansas....but who cares, did you see what they did to Texas A&M?
 


Pretty much spot on.

It is the same debate we had in the BCS era.


Was Michigan better than Florida?
Was Alabama better than Oklahoma state and Stanford?


Now the questions come with even more hype, because instead of debating 2-3 teams for the number 2 spot, the debate is 10 teams for the number 4 spot.
 



Problem for ESPN and the SEC is the east teams are going to continue to beat each other. The question isn't going to be if a 1 loss Mississippi St team deserves to go over a 1 loss Michigan St team. The question is going to be whether a 2 loss Alabama team, or 2 loss Auburn team deserve to go over a 1 loss Michigan St team. Arkansas still might win a game to really upset things and LSU and Mississippi could win games any given week. Where you'll really see the crying is when Ohio St beats Michigan St., wins the Big Ten championship as a 1 loss team and still gets passed over by 2 loss Alabama who didn't even win their half of their conference. Ohio St's home loss to Virginia Tech is god awful and may just preclude them any chance.
 

Some guy said:
Pretty much spot on.

It is the same debate we had in the BCS era.


Was Michigan better than Florida?
Was Alabama better than Oklahoma state and Stanford?


Now the questions come with even more hype, because instead of debating 2-3 teams for the number 2 spot, the debate is 10 teams for the number 4 spot.
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It is a perpetual debate where the number of teams selected (whether it is 2, 4, 8, 16) doesn't matter. Only the team names change as the numbers go up. Have to have something to write, talk on radio, or discuss on TV.
 

Alabama is ranked where they are because of their name. They will certainly have a chance to prove how good they are the rest of the season but they haven't done much yet to be ranked that high.
 

4 team playoff...........must win your conference to get in.

8 team playoff........Big 5 conference champions are auto qualifiers.


Both scenarios you qualify by wins on the field........as much as possible. I don't care to see 2 or more SEC teams in a four team playoff. Same for any conference. How does the strength of one conference compare to another conference?....simple, have the champions play each other in a playoff. Do we really need two SEC Championship games in one year?
 

The bottom line is that their rankings are nearly identical to the those of the polls. As with the Supreme Court, a small group is not necessarily smarter than a larger one.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
The bottom line is that their rankings are nearly identical to the those of the polls. As with the Supreme Court, a small group is not necessarily smarter than a larger one.
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Or maybe they're both right? Why is the default that they're both wrong or not smart ?
 

maroonedinCA said:
Or maybe they're both right? Why is the default that they're both wrong or not smart ?
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The problem is, there is no way to know, but by requiring the qualifiers to be a conference champ, you are providing an objective, on the field determined criteria, rather than the infamous "eye test".
 

Great article. Posted this to my FB account. Ten minutes later, my cousin a UF grad posted, "There's no whining in football, at least not in the SEC".

We have to beat them.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
The problem is, there is no way to know, but by requiring the qualifiers to be a conference champ, you are providing an objective, on the field determined criteria, rather than the infamous "eye test".
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But that 'objective' criteria doesn't tell the whole story. All conferences are not created equal. By your metric just a couple years ago a crappy Wisconsin team would be in the playoffs with an 8-4 record. No thanks. I'd rather see teams get selected that pass both the on-field test and the subjective eye-test.
 

maroonedinCA said:
But that 'objective' criteria doesn't tell the whole story. All conferences are not created equal. By your metric just a couple years ago a crappy Wisconsin team would be in the playoffs with an 8-4 record. No thanks. I'd rather see teams get selected that pass both the on-field test and the subjective eye-test.
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It doesn't. The playoff tells the rest of the story. If a crappy team wins a crappy conference, then a good team that wins a good conference annihilates them in front of millions of viewers on national TV and shuts up everybody who says the crappy conference was underrated.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
It doesn't. The playoff tells the rest of the story. If a crappy team wins a crappy conference, then a good team that wins a good conference annihilates them in front of millions of viewers on national TV and shuts up everybody who says the crappy conference was underrated.
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Great so we get 3 games and a few could be blow outs just because we refuse to utilize all the info at our disposal.
 

Decent chance we'll be at 8 teams two years from now. There's going to be major backlash unless we have 4 conferences represented, plus it makes no sense that each of the Power 5 isn't represented. 8 teams guarantees every major conference the opportunity to put up or shut up whether they have 1, 2, 3, or 4 representatives in an 8-team playoff.

Even moreso an 8-team CFP becomes reality sooner rather than later if 1 of 2 things happens this year:

(1) There are 3 conferences completely left out (multiple from 1 conference + Notre Dame); or

(2) The SEC indeed cannibalizes itself and gets completely left out.

I think (1) is much more likely than (2) but would get a hoot out of it if (2) occurred.
 

maroonedinCA said:
Great so we get 3 games and a few could be blow outs just because we refuse to utilize all the info at our disposal.
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When "all the info" at our disposal is highly susceptible to bias and interpretation, yes. That is how virtually every major North American sports playoff does it: you are put within a conference/division/some other type of group and told that if you win it, you get a seat at the table. That way, when there is a very limited number of games between Division A and Division B teams, and possibly none involving the Division champions at issue, neither Division risks being shut out due to prejudice about those divisions.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
When "all the info" at our disposal is highly susceptible to bias and interpretation, yes. That is how virtually every major North American sports playoff does it: you are put within a conference/division/some other type of group and told that if you win it, you get a seat at the table. That way, when there is a very limited number of games between Division A and Division B teams, and possibly none involving the Division champions at issue, neither Division risks being shut out due to prejudice about those divisions.
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And I find it stupid that is how every major sport does it. And every major sport has a helluva lot more parity between their divisions than does CFB. I know we like to scream 'bias' and 'prejudice' to give the *wink wink* referral to the SEC but it's the best conference by a long shot. Probably has at least two of the best teams in CFB. History has shown this over the past half decade. The B1G, on the other hand, has been hot garbage during that same time. I know, it hurts. But personally, I'd rather have the best teams in the playoffs than force a B1G squad in there to get massacred.
 

I agree with those what want to see 8 teams in the playoff. I think this will happen. The big 5 will get together on something that is fair and equitable. By not having each conference represented with automatic bid, it leads to imbalance. Imbalance leads to recruiting inequities, bias, etc.

Now would you seed the Big five 1-5 and then random draw the 6-8 or seed 1-8?

Seed 1-8 would be:

1Mississippi St vs 8Michigan St.
2Florida St. vs 7Kansas St.
4Oregon vs 5Alabama
3Auburn vs 6TCU
 

MaxyJR1 said:
I agree with those what want to see 8 teams in the playoff. I think this will happen. The big 5 will get together on something that is fair and equitable. By not having each conference represented with automatic bid, it leads to imbalance. Imbalance leads to recruiting inequities, bias, etc.

Now would you seed the Big five 1-5 and then random draw the 6-8 or seed 1-8?

Seed 1-8 would be:

1Mississippi St vs 8Michigan St.
2Florida St. vs 7Kansas St.
4Oregon vs 5Alabama
3Auburn vs 6TCU
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Interesting to see it bracketed 1-8.

I have no problem with Mississippi State's #1 ranking, wins @ LSU and over Auburn are impressive, but on a neutral field I'd take Michigan State over Mississippi State in a heartbeat. The only differences between the two are (1) the other MSU has one more quality win than Sparty, (2) Sparty played at Oregon and the Bulldogs didn't, and thus (3) Sparty has no margin for error, while Mississippi State does.

All that said, if Michigan State loses Saturday night the Big Ten is pretty much toast. I just can't see Ohio State, even at 12-1, being able to overcome that ugly HOME LOSS to a poor Virginia Tech team. I actually think the Big Ten's 2nd best chance for a CFP spot would be for Nebraska to win out and then beat Sparty in a rematch in Indianapolis. ... the Huskers would have turned the tables on their only loss.

Of course, that's a moot point because the Gophers are going to win in Lincoln!
 

What was the SEC's record in BCS bowls last season, and why don't we hear it mentioned much?
 

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